The First Frontier: The Forgotten History of Struggle, Savagery, and Endurance in Early America

Frontier: the word carries the inevitable scent of the West. But before Custer or Lewis and Clark, before the first Conestoga wagons rumbled across the Plains, it was the East that marked the frontier - the boundary between complex Native cultures and the first colonizing Europeans.Here is the older, wilder, darker history of a time when the land between the Atlantic and the Appalachians was contested ground - when radically different societies adopted and adapted the ways of the other, while struggling for control of what all considered to be their land.

A Life Wild and Perilous: Mountain Men and the Paths to the Pacific

If you have ever wondered what is was like to be an explorer in the unspoiled American West of the early 1800s, then this is the audiobook for you. Not only a groundbreaking work of American history by critically acclaimed author Robert M. Utley, A Life Wild and Perilous is also a dramatic story of innovation and survival. Here is your chance to live in the very heart of the American wilderness with legendary trappers and mountain men like Jim Bridger, Kit Carson, Tom Fitzpatrick, and Jedediah Smith.

Crow Killer: The Saga of Liver-Eating Johnson (Midland Book)

The true story (on which the film Jeremiah Johnson was partially based) of John Johnson, who in 1847 found his wife and her unborn child had been killed by Crow braves. Out of this tragedy came one of the most gripping feuds - one man against a whole tribe - in American history.

The Adventures of the Mountain Men: True Tales of Hunting, Trapping, Fighting, and Survival

The “mountain men” were the hunters and trappers who fiercely strode the Rocky Mountains in the early to mid-1800s. They braved the elements in search of the skins of beavers and other wild animals, to sell or barter for goods. The lifestyle of the mountain men could be harsh, existing as they did among animals, and spending most of their days and nights living and camping out in the great unexplored wilds of the Rockies.

Drums Along the Mohawk

Drums along the Mohawk, Walter D. Edmonds' masterpiece, is not only the best historical novel about upstate New York since James Fenimore Cooper, it was also number one on the bestseller list for two years, only yielding to the epic Gone with the Wind. This is the story of the forgotten pioneers of the Mohawk Valley during the Revolutionary War. Here Gilbert Martin and his young wife struggled and lived and hoped.

Incidents Among the Savages

The year was 1803. It was a time when the West was not only frontier, it was the undiscovered country. It was the time of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, before the trains of Prairie Schooners and settlers, before cowboys or cattle drives, before Colonel Colt and the six-shooter, and nearly a three quarters of a century before George Armstrong Custer and his men were killed at Little Big Horn. It was a time when the western fur trade was new, and only the first of the mountain men had left the Mississippi behind on their journey into the wilderness.

The Apache Wars: The Hunt for Geronimo, the Apache Kid, and the Captive Boy Who Started the Longest War in American History

They called him Mickey Free. His kidnapping started the longest war in American history, and both sides - the Apaches and the white invaders - blamed him for it. A mixed-blood warrior who moved uneasily between the worlds of the Apaches and the American soldiers, he was never trusted by either but desperately needed by both. He was the only man Geronimo ever feared. He played a pivotal role in this long war for the desert Southwest from its beginning in 1861 until its end in 1890 with his pursuit of the renegade scout Apache Kid.

The Heart of Everything That Is: The Untold Story of Red Cloud, An American Legend

The great Oglala Sioux chief Red Cloud was the only Plains Indian to defeat the United States Army in a war, forcing the American government to sue for peace in a conflict named for him. At the peak of their chief’s powers, the Sioux could claim control of one-fifth of the contiguous United States. But unlike Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, or Geronimo, the fog of history has left Red Cloud strangely obscured. Now, thanks to painstaking research by two award-winning authors, his incredible story can finally be told.

Blood and Thunder: An Epic of the American West

In the fall of 1846, the venerable Navajo warrior Narbona, greatest of his people's chieftains, looked down upon the small town of Santa Fe, the stronghold of the Mexican settlers he had been fighting his whole long life. He had come to see if the rumors were true, if an army of blue-suited soldiers had swept in from the East and utterly defeated his ancestral enemies.

The Big Sky

Originally published more than 50 years ago, The Big Sky is the first of A. B. Guthrie's epic adventure novels of America's vast frontier. The Big Sky introduces Boone Caudill, Jim Deakins, and Dick Summers, three of the most memorable characters in western American literature. Traveling the Missouri River from St. Louis to the Rockies, these frontiersmen live as trappers, traders, guides, and explorers.

Undaunted Courage

In 1803, President Thomas Jefferson selected his personal secretary, Captain Meriwether Lewis, to lead a voyage up the Missouri River, across the forbidding Rockies, and - by way of the Snake and the Columbia rivers - down to the Pacific Ocean. Lewis and his partner, Captain William Clark, endured incredible hardships and witnessed astounding sights. With great perseverance, they worked their way into an unexplored West. When they returned two years later, they had long since been given up for dead.

The Earth Is Weeping: The Epic Story of the Indian Wars for the American West

With the end of the Civil War, the nation recommenced its expansion onto traditional Indian tribal lands, setting off a wide-ranging conflict that would last more than three decades. In an exploration of the wars and negotiations that destroyed tribal ways of life even as they made possible the emergence of the modern United States, Peter Cozzens gives us both sides in comprehensive and singularly intimate detail.

The Revenant: A Novel of Revenge

The year is 1823, and the trappers of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company live a brutal frontier life. Hugh Glass is among the company's finest men, an experienced frontiersman and an expert tracker. But when a scouting mission puts him face-to-face with a grizzly bear, he is viciously mauled and not expected to survive. Two company men are dispatched to stay behind and tend to Glass before he dies. When the men abandon him instead, Glass is driven to survive by one desire: revenge.

American Buffalo: In Search of a Lost Icon

Steven Rinella won a lottery to hunt for a wild buffalo in the Alaskan wilderness. One of only four hunters that year who succeeded in killing a buffalo, he carried the carcass down a snow-covered mountainside and floated it four miles down a white-water canyon while being trailed by grizzly bears and suffering from hypothermia. Rinella found himself contemplating his own place among the 14,000 years' worth of buffalo hunters in North America and the place of the buffalo in the American consciousness.

Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History

Empire of the Summer Moon spans two astonishing stories. The first traces the rise and fall of the Comanches, the most powerful Indian tribe in American history. The second entails one of the most remarkable narratives ever to come out of the Old West: the epic saga of the pioneer woman Cynthia Ann Parker and her mixed-blood son, Quanah, who became the last and greatest chief of the Comanches.

Follow the River

Mary Ingles was 23, happily married, and pregnant with her third child when Shawnee Indians invaded her peaceful Virginia settlement in 1755 and kidnapped her, leaving behind a bloody massacre. For months they held her captive. But nothing could imprison her spirit. With the rushing Ohio River as her guide, Mary Ingles walked one thousand miles through an untamed wilderness no white woman had ever seen.

The Lewis and Clark Journals: An American Epic of Discovery

In their own words, recorded in the famous journals of Lewis and Clark, the members of the Corps of Discovery tell their story with an immediacy and power missing from secondhand accounts. All of their triumphs and terrors are here: the thrill of seeing the vast herds of bison, the fear the captains felt when Sacagawea fell ill, the ordeal of crossing the Continental Divide, the misery of cold and hunger, and the kidnapping and rescue of Lewis' dog, Seaman.

The Journey of Crazy Horse: A Lakota History

Most of the world remembers Crazy Horse as a peerless warrior who brought the U.S. Army to its knees at the Battle of Little Bighorn. But to his fellow Lakota Indians, he was a dutiful son and humble fighting man who, with valor, spirit, respect, and unparalleled leadership, fought for his people's land, livelihood, and honor. In this fascinating biography, Joseph Marshall, himself a Lakota Indian, creates a vibrant portrait of the man, his times, and his legacy.

Simon Girty: Wilderness Warrior

During the American Revolution and the border conflicts that followed, Simon Girty's name struck terror into the hearts of U.S. settlers in the Ohio Valley and the territory of Kentucky. Girty (1741-1818) had lived with the Natives most of his life. Scorned by his fellow white frontiersmen as an "Indian lover," Girty became an Indian agent for the British. He accompanied Native raids against Americans, spied deep into enemy territory, and was influential in convincing the tribes to fight for the British.

City of Dreams: The 400-Year Epic History of Immigrant New York

Tyler Anbinder's story is one of innovators and artists, revolutionaries and rioters, staggering deprivation and soaring triumphs, all playing out against the powerful backdrop of New York City, at once ever changing and profoundly, permanently itself. City of Dreams provides a vivid sense of what New York looked like, sounded like, smelled like, and felt like over the centuries of its development and maturation into the city we know today.

The Return of Little Big Man

In 1964, Little Big Man gave us the reminiscences of Jack Crabb - a white orphan raised among the Cheyenne - who returns to "civilized" society, where (among other things) he tangles with Wyatt Earp and Wild Bill Hickok, and ends up as the only white survivor of Custer's Last Stand. At the end of Little Big Man, Jack's supposed death at age 111 cut short his tale.

A Braver Man's Fear: A Braver Man Series, Book 3

The people of San Angela had no idea Mill Roth left his cattle empire to a woman by the name of Hattie Stamps, the widow of Beaver Stamps, who was Mill's oldest and best friend. Until she showed up claiming the Roth Empire, everything was fine. Some of the citizens, other cattle operators, and people of high standing were filing section claims and branding cattle as fast as they could be caught. Plat Hargis and Floyd Sutter, both wealthy cattle and land owners, were claiming the largest chunks of the properties.

Frontiersman: Daniel Boone and the Making of America: Southern Biography Series

Meredith Mason Brown traces Daniel Boone's life from his Pennsylvania childhood to his experiences in the militia and his rise as an unexcelled woodsman, explorer, and backcountry leader. In the process, we meet the authentic Boone: he didn't wear coonskin caps; he read and wrote better than many frontiersmen; he was not the first to settle Kentucky; he took no pleasure in killing Indians. At once a loner and a leader, a Quaker who became a skilled frontier fighter, Boone is a study in contradictions.

Publisher's Summary

The frontiersmen were a remarkable breed of men. They were often rough and illiterate, sometimes brutal and vicious, often seeking an escape in the wilderness of mid-America from crimes committed back east. In the beautiful but deadly country that would one day come to be known as West Virginia, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, more often than not they left their bones to bleach beside forest paths or on the banks of the Ohio River, victims of Indians who claimed the vast virgin territory and strove to turn back the growing tide of whites.

These frontiersmen are the subjects of Allan W. Eckert's dramatic history. Against the background of such names as George Rogers Clark, Daniel Boone, Arthur St. Clair, Anthony Wayne, Simon Girty, and William Henry Harrison, Eckert has re-created the life of one of America's most outstanding heroes, Simon Kenton. Kenton's role in opening the Northwest Territory to settlement more than rivaled that of his friend Daniel Boone. By his 18th birthday, Kenton had already won frontier renown as woodsman, fighter, and scout. His incredible physical strength and endurance, his great dignity and innate kindness made him the ideal prototype of the frontier hero.

Yet there is another story to The Frontiersmen. It is equally the story of one of history's greatest leaders, whose misfortune was to be born to a doomed cause and a dying race. Tecumseh, the brilliant Shawnee chief, welded together by the sheer force of his intellect and charisma an incredible Indian confederacy that came desperately close to breaking the thrust of the white man's westward expansion. Like Kenton, Tecumseh was the paragon of his people's virtues, and the story of his life, in Eckert's hands, reveals most profoundly the grandeur and the tragedy of the American Indian.

I am an incredible dork when comes to history. Unfortunately, I was never a big fan of history class. The reason was this: I have always been of the mind that history is a story - of people and places and experiences - but the people who write history books are not storytellers. Allan W Eckert is a masterful storyteller. As it tells you in the beginning of the this audiobook, he spent most of a decade tracking down and sifting through historical records, and specifically people's diaries, to weave together the stories and people he brings once more to life in this remarkable book. And it's all real. The people, their names, their lives, their stories. All real. I kept having to remind myself of that as I was listening/reading this book. It is a novel. It reads like a novel. But everything in it is historical fact. It is a beautiful amalgamation of history and literature. If you love history, biographies, or historical fiction (my personal favorite) you will LOVE this book! It is a must read for you! Happy Listening -Whitney

This is history at its best! Except you don't realize that you're getting a history lesson while reading it. Learning about Daniel Boone, Blue Jacket, Techumpsa (Techumpsa) and a serious frontiersman - Simon Kenton.

You certainly didn't learn this in school and would have paid more attention and enjoyed the time better if it had been taught like this book!

If you didn't realize for example, that Daniel Boone's life was saved by a frontiersman named Simon Kenton and how Daniel Boone got into that situation (as well as numerous other things that happened similarly exciting) you'll love this book in your collection.

For my own part, I could not put it down...I wanted to listen to 'what would happen next' at every idle moment.

First book in a long time that I couldn't put down. I stayed up until 4:00am to finish it up. The reader is the best in the industry and the content is amazing in detail. If you like early American Frontiersman stories, you'll love this one.

I have read this book several times and listening I gained a greater understanding of the life and time of notable people late 1700s frontier. Allen Eckert books are awsome and provide a picture of frontier life in Kentucky,Ohio, and Indiana. Hope more come out in audio form.

A masterful woven story on what life was like in northern KY, WV and Ohio in the 1770-1810s. Very credible read. Well balanced and well researched. The Narration was superb. Kudos to the narrator. This book should be mandatory reading for all KY,WV and OH high schooler as to how their states were formed.

Allan Eckert published The Frontiersmen over a decade ago. I have just returned to renew acquaintance with this work and have been rewarded by the effort. Eckert presents history as narrative and in this book he describes the lives, sacrifices, and problems faced by American frontiersmen – white and Indian alike. At the same time this book can be gut wrenching, eye opening, heart breaking, and entertaining. Sections dealing with the relationships between the Indians, settlers, and the US government are nuanced and particularly painful to read. If you will give over a little time and turn some pages, Eckert will make early American history – westward expansion, Daniel Boone, William Henry Harrison, the fight for Kentucky and the Ohio River Valley all come to life The reading of Kevin Foley is excellent.

Allan Eckert brings the 'New Frontier' into such a stark and vast understanding of what life was like back then, it is amazing. This is so much more than History, it is true Life. I have read all the books in this series and find them unequaled by any other Author. The amazing detail and research shows on every page. I can only hope that Audible will have more of his books on line soon for everyone to enjoy. I appreciate being able to revisit this book in it's Unabridged version and the Narrator does a fantastic job with all the Characters that you come across. His speech and pace, pronunciation of the Indian Dialect is spot on. Thanks so much for making this such an outstanding listen.

I am so happy to see Allan Eckert's The Frontiersman on Audible.com. His work is excellent and I am looking forward to the rest of the Winning of America books to be available here. Thank you Audible!!